Final word on 50D noise?

Hello-

I've been reading a lot about the noise issues on the 50D, some people indicate it's noticeably worse than the 40D, others say better.

I hate to make a redundant post, but I've done my best to try to figure this out on my own, and have ended up confused. There is a lot of conflicting information, which is made more confusing by the different filetypes (RAW, JPEG), converters (DPP, ACR), and 50D noise reduction settings (Disable, Low, Standard, Strong).

Ultimately can the 50D (using DPP which apparently is providing much better results than other RAW converters for this camera at this point) deliver better results than the 40D, at say, ISO 1600?

Thanks!

-TM