This disclosure describes techniques for automatically selecting a rendering mode for use by a graphics processing unit (GPU) to render graphics data for display. More specifically, the techniques include evaluating at least two metrics associated with rendering graphics data of one or more rendering units, and automatically selecting either an immediate rendering mode or a deferred rendering mode for a current rendering unit based on the evaluated metrics. The selected rendering mode may be the one of the rendering modes predicted to use less power and/or system bandwidth to render the graphics data of the current rendering unit. A rendering unit may comprise a set of frames, a frame, a portion of a frame, multiple render targets associated with a frame, a single render target associated with a frame, or a portion of a single render target.