My naive perf. test:
```php
$n = 1000000;
$start = microtime(true);
for ($i = 0; $i < $n; $i++) {
        $socket = socket_create(AF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, SOL_UDP);
}
echo (microtime(true)-$start)/$n;
```
yields 1.8676559925079E-6, which I'd consider quite fast. I'm not sure how much there is to gain.