Large-scale electronics assembler Quanta is preparing to large numbers of a new iMac due early January, a report from the Taiwan-area Economic Daily News. Previously well-known for building a significant portion of Apple's computers, Quanta is allegedly set to produce a new iMac that would ship in large volumes starting in January; as many as 800,000 per month would ship during the first three months of the year, the newspaper claims.

Such a shipping target would potentially be very aggressive for Apple, which shipped 2.6 million Macs of any type during its summer quarter in 2008 and is already thought to have struggled in November with increasing its performance versus last year. It's unknown whether the 800,000-unit claim applies to each month or just the initial production for launch.

While potentially inaccurate, the report corroborates an earlier story hinting that Apple would release a quad-core iMac at the same time frame using an as-yet unreleased desktop Core 2 Quad processor that consumes 65W of power, rendering it cool enough to fit in an all-in-one PC like the iMac or the already confirmed HP Firebird 803.

Listings in Apple's own hardware extensions also make mention of iMacs with 9400M hardware that suggest a visual boost for at least lower-end models.