  We present a reliable algorithm to evaluate quantum discord for general
two--qubit states, amending and extending an approach recently put forward for
the subclass of X--states. A closed expression for the discord of arbitrary
states of two qubits cannot be obtained, as the optimization problem for the
conditional entropy requires the solution to a pair of transcendental equations
in the state parameters. We apply our algorithm to run a numerical comparison
between quantum discord and an alternative, computable measure of non-classical
correlations, namely the geometric discord. We identify the extremally
non-classically correlated two--qubit states according to the (normalized)
geometric discord, at fixed value of the conventional quantum discord. The
latter cannot exceed the square root of the former for systems of two qubits.
