The 5D still comes in as the low noise king here which isn't surprising since it's the only full frame sensor of the 3. In the non-darkish areas, the CMOS D300 isn't leaps and bounds better when compared to the CCD D80.
When comparing the Nikon's with high ISO noise reduction on and off, there's a noticeable difference between on and off but as far as I can tell, not that much of a difference between the different levels of noise reduction (low, normal, high).
The rubbery parts on the D300 feels more rubbery than the similar parts on the 5D and D80 but I like the grip on the 5D better overall because of the groove that it has for the middle finger.
While 51 AF points is probably overkill for most people (myself included), the horizontal coverage in the viewfinder is pretty awesome. Vertically it doesn't get as far up to the edges but still not bad. Makes the coverage on the 5D look very, very bad.
Higher resolution LCD on the back of the D300 really doesn't seem to make too much of a difference to me compared to the 5D's. I suppose if you pixelpeep on the camera itself the Nikon may show better detail while zoomed in but overall the LCD didn't blow me away. But it's always nice to have a larger LCD like the D300 has.
The shutter sound for the D300 is a bit different. Sounds almost like the old Konica-Minolta dSLRs but a bit chunkier. Very quick sound though. Even though I like the 5D shutter sound better, the D300's gets points for being very short.
There's no doubt the D300's a fine and capable camera but I think I can patiently wait for the 5D's successor to be announced come the end of January.
