Which is more important, the height or the depth of the cabinet?

I'm planning an attic grow inside a cabinet I will be building. Due to low ceiling beams in the attic, I can either build a cabinet that is 53" tall (external dimension) and 24" deep, or one that is under 40" tall and 50-60" deep. Either one would be about 60" wide.

In other words, I can choose between these W x H x D options:

60 x 53 x 24" OR 60 x 40 x 50"

I'm going to be using CFLs, at least for my first grow in the cabinet, so I'm tempted to say shorter and deeper is better, but I was hoping for input. Thoughts?

I'd have to say height if you didn't mess with their growing. But you could tie them town and make them fit a short space. I's rather have a tall grow room then a short one. Because even if you make them short and tie them down it's gonna affect width , like you could only half two fat ones or two tall but,,,,,, short and fat will increase your yield so idk tieing and bending has it's risks you could fuck up and kill one.?? I'd say tall room.

Thanks for your feedback, jiggsaw.

I am planning to do a scrog, since I'll be flowering using CFLs and won't have much light penetration. So, I'll definitely be doing lots of training of the plants to spread them out properly over the screen. Right now my plan is two plants for this grow space, though I would ideally like to have a separate small veg chamber for a mother (or for clones and flower the "mother" instead).

Now that I have pondered it for a couple days, I think I'm going to build a veg chamber on top of the cross-beams, and the flowering chamber below. That way I'm actually using the beams to separate one from the other and bear the weight of the veg chamber. 40" will be tough for a scrog, especially when you add in the height of the soil and container, but I should be able to manage I think. Since the beams will be the ceiling and floor of each chamber, I will not be restrained by the 24" depth.

Anyone else have input?

i would build the biggest box as to anticipate the growth of your next grow.
anticipation...........

Well, yes, that's the point -- I want to build the biggest box I can in whatever dimension should be biggest. I can either build all the way to the roof, but squeeze it between two ceiling beams that are 24" apart, or I can make it short enough to fit underneath the beams (which are 40" high), but then as wide and deep as I want (up to about 60", when it runs into the A/C duct work).

As I said, I think I'm going to build the flowering chamber under the 40" high beams, and put the clone/mother chamber on top. That way, only it will be squeezed between the beams, and the flowering chamber can spread out low as a sog or scrog.

It's relatively easy to control height (LST, etc.), but much harder to control bush. And everybody likes bush ;)