A method for accessing and maintaining socket control information for high speed network connections. A multi-port control block (CB) cache contains socket control information in CB entries for sockets assigned to the transport offload engine (TOE) by a host computer. Each port provides a TOE client direct access to the CB cache. Time critical logic are each provided dedicated ports to enable higher bandwidth accesses to the CB cache for these time critical clients. All other non-time critical TOE clients are given arbitrated access via a separate dedicated port. An optional external memory is given direct access to the CB cache via a dedicated port and can store more CB entries for additional sockets.