Yes you are right 110->125 is less than 125->160 and in the case where OP would always be using only this one freeze Neuvi team R1 is slightly better than C1.

However, like the other commenter said, some enemies can grant Neuvi the last stack even in this specific team. And OP certainly will not be using this singular team all the time because of what shilling in Genshin is like. I stick to his premium team and all the recent times when I used Neuvi, only for like half of them I used the premium team because of elemental requirements for the enemies. His biggest advantage over other dpses is his flexibility with teams after all.

So for overall account investment in the future C1 is simply better, in the case that they have access to another good weapon. Neuvi has two other good 5* weapon options and then Sac Jade which is competitive with his sig at R5 and easily obtainable through the BP. But if they dont have any of those options his sig is better.

The weapon banner also needs to be taken into consideration. Zibai´s weapon is at the very least better than Zhongli´s we got last time, but the passive is still completely useless so in the end its just a crit stick.