HVDC power transmission systems are being commissioned in the North Sea to link inland power grids with large offshore wind power farms. The growing number of large wind farms is driving the need to design more reliable high power transportation systems, leading to the conception of multi-terminal HVDC grids. These future grids will be purely formed by power electronics converters, the control of which will have to be designed to ensure proper performance and robust operation. This paper presents the analysis of the benchmark system proposed by the CIGRE working group SC B4, focusing on the proper selection of the components models and parameters. The small signal model of the system is first formulated. Then the bandwidth of the different control loops is obtained and the fidelity of the HVDC line model is selected accordingly. Finally, the performance of the benchmark system is studied by means of small signal analysis and compared numerical time series simulation of the non-linear model. © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.