there are several things that may cause the performance difference
pentium m are faster than pentium 4, it's architecture was the basis for the later core 2 duo processors
ati 9600 is very fast and fx5950 is not very good, also nvidia drivers are not very good

1. Does your memory works in dual channel? I have the same motherboard as yours and it definitely support dual channel mode.
2. Does your memory works @400 MHz? In my experience 865 chipset motherboards often choice 333 MHz mode automatically even CPU have 800 MHz FSB. You should select 400 MHz mode manually in BIOS.
3. You absolutely should use driver versions 4X.XX or 5X.XX with GeForce FX series in Windows 98. Anything newer are mostly useless trash with rare exceptions. 8X.XX drivers are bad.
4. In modern Direct 9.0 applications with shaders ATI 9600-9800 cards are usually much faster than GeForce FXs. Are you comparing those configurations in old games/benchmarks from DirectX 6-8.1 era?
5. According to PassMark benchmark Pentium M 1.8 GHz is only slightly slower than Pentium 4 3.4 GHz (280 scores vs 295 scores) . Maybe in some cases it can be even slightly faster? Try different tests.

The Pentium M was based on the Tualatin core and was developed into the later Core series. Not the other way around. It wasnt until Intel dropped the shocking bad "space heater" series
The 3.4 should be slightly higher though given its technically better hardware.

Kruton 9000 wrote on 2023-08-21, 06:35:

1. Does your memory works in dual channel? I have the same motherboard as yours and it definitely support dual channel mode. 2. […]
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1. Does your memory works in dual channel? I have the same motherboard as yours and it definitely support dual channel mode.
2. Does your memory works @400 MHz? In my experience 865 chipset motherboards often choice 333 MHz mode automatically even CPU have 800 MHz FSB. You should select 400 MHz mode manually in BIOS.
3. You absolutely should use driver versions 4X.XX or 5X.XX with GeForce FX series in Windows 98. Anything newer are mostly useless trash with rare exceptions. 8X.XX drivers are bad.
4. In modern Direct 9.0 applications with shaders ATI 9600-9800 cards are usually much faster than GeForce FXs. Are you comparing those configurations in old games/benchmarks from DirectX 6-8.1 era?
5. According to PassMark benchmark Pentium M 1.8 GHz is only slightly slower than Pentium 4 3.4 GHz (280 scores vs 295 scores) . Maybe in some cases it can be even slightly faster? Try different tests.

I'll give the drivers a whirl BUT the Fx 5950 performs about on par with a 9800 ultra, the early Fx cards were terrible with DX9 but refresh cards were very competent, i do also gave a 9800 ultra and I noticed they were running around the same performance, I may try a clean install of 98 I neglected to mention that the install of 98 im using is a cloned from the laptops drive

Could also be the CDROM drive im using is just absurdly slow

weldum wrote on 2023-08-21, 04:35:

there are several things that may cause the performance difference
pentium m are faster than pentium 4, it's architecture was the basis for the later core 2 duo processors
ati 9600 is very fast and fx5950 is not very good, also nvidia drivers are not very good

They were slightly faster per clock but thats where it ended the pentium 4 3.4 ghz is around 80% faster in total and it reflects in the CPU score in 3D mark

Tonba wrote on 2023-08-21, 17:27:

I may try a clean install of 98 I neglected to mention that the install of 98 im using is a cloned from the laptops drive

That seems like a good idea. The fact that W98 even boots in another machine is close to magic in my experience 🤣 that cloned hard drive could easily be a major mess in the driver database

Tonba wrote on 2023-08-21, 17:33:

They were slightly faster per clock but thats where it ended the pentium 4 3.4 ghz is around 80% faster in total and it reflects in the CPU score in 3D mark

p4 3.4 is 80% faster than a PM?

A Pentium M @ 2ghz is roughly equivalent to a Pentium 4 3.4 E When considering overclocking a Pentium M @ 2.7 GHZ it beats an AMD64 FX55.

The 80% part only is the Pentium 4 consumes 80% more power.
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