Primary and secondary coefficients are identified and used for entropy coding to improve performance. When coding quantized transform coefficients of a transform block, one of those quantized transform coefficients is identified as a primary coefficient. A coefficient map indicating locations of ones of the quantized transform coefficients within the transform block is produced. Valid secondary coefficient associated with the primary coefficient are identified using the coefficient map and data indicating a location of a last non-zero coefficient within the transform block. A token class used to encode one or more neighbor coefficients of the primary coefficient and the valid secondary coefficients is then identified, and a number of bits to use to code the primary coefficient and the valid secondary coefficients is determined based on the token class. The number of bits is determined based on data retrieved from a hardware register and thus determined in a single clock cycle.