A method, apparatus, and article of manufacture for retaining packet order in multiprocessor systems utilizing multiple transmit queues while minimizing spinlocks are disclosed herein. Embodiments of the present invention define multiple transmit queues for a given priority level of packets to allow parallel processing and queuing of packets having equal priority in different transmit queues. Queuing packets of equal priority in different transmit queues minimizes processor time spent attempting to acquire queue-specific resources associated with one particular transmit queue. In addition, embodiments of the present invention provide an assignment mechanism to maximize utilization of the multiple transmit queues by queuing packets corresponding to each transmit request in a next available transmit queue defined for a given priority level. Coordination between hardware and software allows the order of the queued packets to be maintained in the transmission process.