It's in the JEP (https://openjdk.org/jeps/523):

> We made G1 the default collector for server environments in JDK 9 (JEP 248). At that time, testing showed that Serial had significant advantages in throughput and footprint in constrained environments with a single CPU or less than 1792 MB of physical memory. We therefore adjusted the JVM's GC selection algorithm to choose Serial in such environments.