Nikon D300 and D70s noise comparison

So I finally got the smaller brother, D300 for a test. Came in a nice bag from Nikon office, with a lovely surprise as well: Nikkor 14-24 2.8 AF-S N. I'll talk more about the lens later, the first thing I wanted to do with D300 were some homemade ISO tests. I've done a bunch of them: NR off, low, normal and high, with ambient light and with flash. Overall I'm quite impressed with noise levels. I'll post some shots after I sort everything out.
The next thing I was curious about, was the noise comparison with my trusty D70s. I just can't seem to get away from this cam. Was set to trade it for D200 a year ago, but it always keeps surprising me.. in a positive way.
So, here are some shots. Same setup: one flash, iso 1600, all NR off, nef, normal import into Lightroom, default LR settings, no pp of any kind, screenprint..
Of course sensors are different so you can't really compare them, but you get the overall impression. I was surprised.. again..

Setup (focus was on the smiley face):



D70s on the right (which is clear by it's "famous" underexposing), D300 on the left.