Thermal paste applicators are a scam, just use the spreader
I see so many techs online arguing about the perfect pea size or X pattern for CPU thermal paste, but for the last 6 years I've just used the little plastic spreader that comes with most paste kits. I ran a test last month on an old i5 I had lying around, did the pea method on one mount and a manual spread on another, and the temps were within 2 degrees Celsius under load. The spreader gets you full coverage every time without worrying about air bubbles or too much pressure. I think the whole debate is just content creators trying to make a 2 minute job feel like rocket science. Has anyone else actually benchmarked this or am I the only one who stopped overthinking it?
The whole debate being rocket science made me laugh because I once spent like 20 minutes watching videos on the perfect pea size and still just ended up smearing it around with my finger. Your 2 degree result sounds about right, most of us are out here stressing over nothing.