To compare real-life RAW performance I shot this scene with the Nikon D610 and the Nikon D7100, within a few moments of each other using their RAW modes.
To eliminate lens differences and concentrate on the relative performance of the sensors, I fitted the D610's 24-85mm kit lens to the D7100. On the D7100, at its wide angle setting, the AF-S 24-85mm zoom lens has an equivalent focal length of 36mm, so on the D610 the lens was zoomed in to produce an equivalent field of view and the 100 percent crops from the resulting images are shown below.
My noise results start on the next page, see index above right.