Programmable switches are promising platforms for fast and flexible in-network computation; however, a standard mechanism, packet recirculation, degrades throughput due to bandwidth consumption caused by the loopback of not only packet headers but also cumbersome payloads. This paper proposes P4QRS, a mechanism for retaining payloads within the switch, reducing payload recirculations. Specifically, P4QRS bifurcates packets into headers and payloads, which undergo the computation process through pipelines and the buffering process leveraging the switch’s queue behavior, respectively; they then rendezvous for reassembly into complete packets to be sent out. To validate its effectiveness, we evaluated P4QRS using an analytical model and implementation on state-of-the-art hardware programmable switches. Our evaluation shows that P4QRS operates stably and intrinsically boosts complex in-switch computations. © 2024 IEEE.