Abstract: Power management functionality is described for implementing an application in an energy-efficient manner, without substantially degrading overall performance of the application. The functionality operates by identifying at least first data and second data associated with the application. The first data is considered to have a greater potential impact on performance of the application compared to the second data. The functionality then instructs a first set of hardware-level resources to handle the first data and a second set of hardware-level resources to handle the second data. The first set of hardware-level resources has a higher reliability compared to the second set of hardware-level resources. In one case, the first and second hardware-level resources comprise DRAM memory units. Here, the first set of hardware-level resources achieves greater reliability than the second set of hardware-level resources by being refreshed at a higher rate than the second set of hardware-level resources.