Does Low-Power Design Imply Energy Efficiency for Data Centers?

Data center efficiency has quickly become a first-class design goal. In response, many studies have emerged from the academic community and industry using low-power design to help improve the energy efficiency of server hardware. Generally, these proposals hold the assumption that low-power design is inherently better for energy efficiency; this preconception stems mostly from great success in the mobile space with building low-power, energy-efficient systems. The authors observe that unlike mobile devices, constraining a data center server to a low power budget is arbitrary and higher power design choices can be more energy efficient.