To achieve a lower OPEX, one appealing alternative is to use low-power versions of servers to reduce the total electricity required to run the servers; however, similar to high-end servers, low-power versions of high-end components also have nonlinear trade-offs.

a. If low-power server options offered 15% lower power at the same performance but are 20% more expensive, are they a good trade-off?

b. At what cost do the servers become comparable to the original cluster? What if the price of electricity doubles?