A work conserving scheduler can be implemented based on a ranking system to provide the scalability of time stamps while avoiding the fast search associated with a traditional time stamp implementation. Each queue can be assigned a time stamp that is initially set to zero. The time stamp for a queue can be incremented each time a data packet from the queue is processed. To provide varying weights to the different queues, the time stamp for the queues can be incremented at varying rates. The data packets can be processed from the queues based on the tier rank order of the queues as determined from the time stamp associated with each queue. To increase the speed at which the ranking is determined, the ranking can be calculate from a subset of the bits defining the time stamp rather than the entire bit set.