Get an XPS13 for the same money, and put Linux on it. It's a much better hardware/software combo, and Apple can't unilaterally kill it by refusing to provide upgrades a few years from now.
n.b. the Geekbench multicore test is more like a 2-core test because it adds lock contention, which is arguably closer to the real use case for these machines but isn't what you normally think of a multicore test doing
Though it does seem safe to say your original claim of "way slower than the Neo" isn't correct. Considering it's losing in one benchmark and only ahead in Geekbench (that tends to show higher scores for Apple processors relative to other benchmarks anyway).
"Roughly equal" seems to be a more accurate description.
It's not normal for these two benchmarks to deviate that much, so I'm not gonna take an average between them, just trust one or the other. My default has always been Geekbench, I didn't even look at Passmark until it was mentioned, and in this case Geekbench thinks the Mac's single-core speed is 35% higher.