A device for switching packets in a network includes a switching core and a plurality of ports, coupled to pass the packets from one to another through the switching core. The ports include, with respect to each packet among the packets switched by the device, a receiving port, coupled to receive the packet from a packet source, and a destination port, to which the packet is passed for conveyance to a packet destination. The ports also include one or more cache memories, respectively associated with one or more of the ports, each of the cache memories being configured to hold a forwarding database cache for reference by the receiving port with which the cache memory is associated in determining the destination port of the packet.