Yeah...I don't use anything special to spread it out either, just a fingertip. Like Loonym said, the TIM on the sinks is a real pain; I was going to use isopropyl alcohol but found some other stuff in the garage that seemed to work better. Oh yeah, you may need a pair of pliers to squeeze the pushpins...I couldn't have done mine without it. As a side note, prime has been running for just about 8hrs now @ 3.6ghz and is still going strong.