Sony releasing A9 III with global shutter

Studio test scene result are now available Sony A9 III with a commentary in this article: https://www.dpreview.com/articles/6717086661/sony-a9-iii-image-quality-dynamic-range-analysis

There is an interesting part:

"This is in line with what we expected. Essentially the a9 III's sensor works by having two photodiodes at each pixel: one to capture the light, initially, and the second to act as a holding buffer, that allows all the pixels to be read-out simultaneously. This design effectively halves each pixel's capacity for light, which explains the elevated base ISO and the decreased noise performance, which brings it closer into line with the performance of APS-C cameras. In addition, the complexity of the design means we don't get the dual conversion gain circuitry that helps improve high ISO performance on other recent cameras."

However, this conclusion is, in my opinion, not supported by the actual test scene images at high ISO. Have a look at screenshots below, A9 III performs better than A6600 in midtones at ISO 6400 but worse in the shadows at ISO 25600. This points to higher read noise as the root cause of worse high ISO performance rather than smaller photodiode. I believe that smaller photodiode size can be partially compensated by matching microlens design (of course this does not increase full-well capacity). The performance at ISO 25600 actually looks quite similar to A7 II which is known to have relatively high read noise according to modern standards.

What's your take on this?

ISO 6400

ISO 25600