Methods and apparatus are provided for adaptive optimization of low-power strategies. In one novel aspect, the device monitors one or more thermal-performance parameters and determines a plurality of operation scenarios for a plurality of corresponding low-power policies. Based on corresponding operation scenarios, the device selects corresponding low-power policy. The device applies different low-power strategy for temperature control based on low-power policies. Different low-power policy is applied to different low-power techniques, such as the DVFS, the CPU hot-plug, and the task migration. In another novel aspect, the device obtains one or more user-defined policy for each corresponding low-power technique. The selection of each low-power policy is further based on its corresponding user-defined policy. In one embodiment, the user-defined DVFS policy includes power policy, performance policy, and DVFS-balanced policy. The user-defined CPU hot-plug policy includes conservative policy, aggressive policy, and hot-plug-balanced policy. The user-defined task-migration policy includes performance policy, and task-migration-balanced policy.