In general, the invention relates to reclaiming transmit descriptors by configuring a media access control (MAC) to execute a first MAC layer thread to reclaim a first number of transmit descriptors (TDs) from a first hardware transmit ring (HTR) using a first reclaim algorithm, where the first reclaim algorithm is associated with a first transmission pattern and a first TDR status. The invention further includes receiving, by a virtual NIC (VNIC) executing within the MAC layer, a first number of packets, forwarding the first number of packets to a device driver on the host associated with the physical NIC, and forwarding the first number of packets from the device driver to the physical NIC using the first number of TDs, where the first plurality of TDs are reclaimed by the first MAC layer thread according to the first reclaim algorithm.