Maximum Throughput of QAM system
When $\log_2(M)$ is even, the relationship betweeen BER and QAM if an AWGN channel is given as below (Assuming Gray coding so that a symbol error in most cases is one bit error):

\begin{align}
k&amp;=\log_2(M)\\
y &amp;= 10^{\frac{SNR}{10}}\\
P_e&amp;=\frac{4}{k}\frac{\sqrt{M}-1}{2\sqrt{M}}\textrm{erfc}\left(\frac{\sqrt{3k\frac{y}{M-1}}}{\sqrt{2}}\right)
\end{align}

Using the above formula to solve for $y$ given your SNR and constellation $M$ should achieve the result you are looking for.

This is an excellent explanation for the derivation of the formula, specific to QAM.

And here is a nice summary by the same author for BER vs SNR of many different modulation schemes