In order to improve the forming quality and material utilization rate of connecting rod forgings and increase the service life of die, the billet structure was modified according to the shape and dimension of connecting rod forgings, and the influences of the interaction of different process parameters on the pre-forging forming load, final forging damage value and final forging die wear depth were investigated based on the response surface method. Then, multi-objective optimization was carried out by combining Multi-Island genetic algorithm. The results show that the forming quality of forgings is good after the modification of billet structure, the volume of billet is 65354.1 mm3, and the material utilization rate is increased by 23.5%. Through variance analysis, it can be seen that the influence degree of each process parameter on the pre-forging forming load is billet temperature > friction factor > upper die velocity > die temperature, the influence degree on the damage value of final forgings is friction factor > billet temperature > upper die velocity > die temperature, and the influence degree on the die wear depth is billet temperature > friction factor > die temperature > upper die velocity. The optimized forming load is 3210 kN, which is reduced by 51.7%, the damage value of forgings is 0.547, which is reduced by 12.3%, and the die wear depth is 0.0389 μm, which is reduced by 22.4%. Thus, the optimization effect is significant, which can provide reference for the optimization of die forging process parameters and the actual production of connecting rod.