PSU requirements stated by hardware recommendations are most usually exaggerated, quite a bit sometimes, to allow for people using PSU's that are of questionable quality. There are a lot of them out there. Also, total wattage of a PSU is not quite as important as to exactly where that power is being used on each rail. We used to look at the amps supplied on the 12 volt rails to determine whether or not a PSU has enough juice to power a certain GPU. But this gets complicated, so a vendor will simply say "550 watt or greater PSU reqjuired for 1 GPU, 650 or greater for Crossfire or SLI" which is likely more than you really need, but this covers most common PC's, running on no name-brand PSU's. A quality PSU that delivers steady, clean, consistent power can be seemingly quite low in total wattage, but yet capable of supplying the amperage where its needed.
And to be fair, if you are in the PSU making business, it does not cost much more at all to build 750 or 1000 watt PSU over the lessor wattage units, but you can sure charge a hefty premium for them!. So vendors naturally want you to think big, and spend big bucks for the bigger numbers. Memory makers are absolutely notorious for this type of marketing. Now does this mean you can always get by on minimum numbers? Of course not. It just means that you need to put just as much research into your PSU selection as you do your video card, CPU, and motherboard.
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