Fernando Galve emph{et al.} $[Phys. Rev. Lett. textbf{110}, 010501 (2013)]$ introduced discording power for a two-qubit unitary gate to evaluate its capability to produce quantum discord, and found that a $pi/8$ gate has maximal discording power. This work analyzes the entangling power of a two-qubit unitary gate, which reflects its ability to generate quantum entanglement in another way. Based on the renowned Cartan decomposition of two-qubit unitary gates, we show that the magic power of the $pi/8$ gate produces maximal entanglement for a general value of purities for two-qubit states.