the "actual popular games" at a certain point in time are usually games that were released very recently. I suspect anandtech doesn't update the game benchmarks too often so you can more easily compare against parts that were reviewed before the newest games were released. they usually have at least one major title for each genre, so you can get a sense of how the part will perform in your favorite game. you can find benchmarks for newer games in YouTube reviews (I personally find jayztwocents to be useful for this).