An intelligent fabric congestion control apparatus and method are provided to receive data packets from source endpoints and output the data packets to destination endpoints. The apparatus and method include a counter, a timer, and a controller. The counter increments from a preset value when a data packet is received at an egress queue and decrements when the data packet is output from the egress queue. The timer starts timing in response to the incrementing of the counter from the preset value. The controller performs one of resetting the timer when the counter is decremented to the preset value prior to the timer reaching a first threshold, and detecting a persistent congestion when the timer reaches the first threshold.