diff --git a/include/dpdk_layer.h b/include/dpdk_layer.h
index 0af00de62..f5bda736f 100644
--- a/include/dpdk_layer.h
+++ b/include/dpdk_layer.h
@@ -33,13 +33,25 @@ extern "C" {
 // there are three periodic messages (ARP, ND, ND-RA) that could be sent at once
 #define DP_PERIODIC_Q_SIZE	(DP_MAX_PORTS * 3)
 
-// 40Gb/s with 1500B packets means ~3.3M packets/s
-// assuming 0.1s delay in processing means ~350k mbufs needed
+// While dpservice is processing RTE_GRAPH_BURST_SIZE, the NIC will store packets here
+// Seen recommendations to keep this at 2*RTE_GRAPH_BURST_SIZE or 4*RTE_GRAPH_BURST_SIZE
+#define DP_RX_QUEUE_SIZE (4 * RTE_GRAPH_BURST_SIZE)
+// Seen this recommended to be bigger than Rx because multiple Rx streams share the same Tx
+// but in our case we are only using one worker thread, so there is no concurrent Tx
+#define DP_TX_QUEUE_SIZE DP_RX_QUEUE_SIZE
+
 #ifdef ENABLE_PYTEST
 #define DP_MBUF_POOL_SIZE	(50*1024)
 #else
-#define DP_MBUF_POOL_SIZE	(350*1024)
+// packet pool needs to be able to hold all packets from all port Rx queues
+// (as requested in the configure stage via DP_RX_QUEUE_SIZE)
+// then also all packets in a burst can allocate a chunk - RTE_GRAPH_BURST_SIZE
+// then there are service queues/periodic/grpc/...
+// thus a headroom of 4k should be OK
+#define DP_MBUF_POOL_HEADROOM 4096
+#define DP_MBUF_POOL_SIZE	((DP_NR_STD_RX_QUEUES * DP_RX_QUEUE_SIZE) * DP_MAX_PORTS + DP_MBUF_POOL_HEADROOM)
 #endif
+
 // max Ether MTU 1500 + frame header 14 + frame footer 4 + IPv6 tunnel header 40
 #define DP_MBUF_BUF_SIZE	(1558 + RTE_PKTMBUF_HEADROOM)
 
diff --git a/src/dp_port.c b/src/dp_port.c
index 8a8e12501..6dd733ffc 100644
--- a/src/dp_port.c
+++ b/src/dp_port.c
@@ -123,7 +123,7 @@ static int dp_port_init_ethdev(struct dp_port *port, struct rte_eth_dev_info *de
 
 	/* RX and TX queues config */
 	for (uint16_t i = 0; i < DP_NR_STD_RX_QUEUES; ++i) {
-		ret = rte_eth_rx_queue_setup(port->port_id, i, 1024,
+		ret = rte_eth_rx_queue_setup(port->port_id, i, DP_RX_QUEUE_SIZE,
 									 port->socket_id,
 									 &rxq_conf,
 									 dp_layer->rte_mempool);
@@ -137,7 +137,7 @@ static int dp_port_init_ethdev(struct dp_port *port, struct rte_eth_dev_info *de
 	txq_conf.offloads = port_conf.txmode.offloads;
 
 	for (uint16_t i = 0; i < DP_NR_STD_TX_QUEUES; ++i) {
-		ret = rte_eth_tx_queue_setup(port->port_id, i, 2048,
+		ret = rte_eth_tx_queue_setup(port->port_id, i, DP_TX_QUEUE_SIZE,
 									 port->socket_id,
 									 &txq_conf);
 		if (DP_FAILED(ret)) {