This in turn is why the 224GB/sec memory bandwidth number for the GTX 970 is technically correct and yet still not entirely useful as we move past the memory controllers, as it is not possible to actually get that much bandwidth at once when doing a pure read or a pure write. In the case of pure reads for example, GTX 970 can read the 3.5GB segment at 196GB/sec (7GHz * 7 ports * 32-bits), or it can read the 512MB segment at 28GB/sec, but it cannot read from both at once; it is a true XOR situation. The same is also true for writes, as only one segment can be written to at a time.
Unfortunately what this means is that accessing the weaker 512MB segment blocks access to the stronger 3.5GB segment if both memory operations are identical; or put another way, using the 512MB segment can harm the performance of the 3.5GB segment. For example, if we want to issue reads to both segments at once, reading the 512MB segment blocks any other reads to the 3.5GB segment for that cycle. If the 3.5GB segment is blocked in this fashion and doesn't have a non-blocking write to work on instead, it would have to go idle for that cycle, which would reduce the effective memory bandwidth of the 3.5GB segment. This means that taken over time in our example, the larger the percentage of the time the crossbar is reading the 512MB segment, the lower the effective read memory bandwidth would be from the 3.5GB segment.