[willis936]

>You want to use as little paste as possible while fully covering the heat spreader.

The data disagrees. Too much paste is fine; too little is not.

https://youtu.be/EUWVVTY63hc

[jtriangle]

Yes, but that's not what I said. Too much paste makes a mess, too little makes, well, a different mess. A pea sized amount is plenty, being that a pea is fairly large.

Personally, I do an X if I'm not lapping, but that is more complex and a dot works just fine for most things.